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Usuario Blog:Aresius King/Gathering Storm II: Fracture of Biel-Tan
Dramatis personae Ynnari * Yvraine - Emisaria de Ynnead. * El Visarca - Espada de Ynnead. * El Yncarne - Avatar de Ynnead. Habitantes de los Mundos Astronave * Meliniel - Autarca de Biel-Tan. * Lathriel - Vidente Suprema de Biel-Tan. * Eldrad Ulthran - Vidente Supremo de Ulthwé. * Iyanna Arienal - Guardiana de las Almas de Iyanden. * Príncipe Yriel - Almirante Supremo de Iyanden. * [[Kysaduras el Anacoreta|Kysaduras el Anacoreta]] - Místico legendario. * Jain Zar - Señora Fénix de la Senda de los Espectros Aullantes. Drukhari (Eldars Oscuros) * Asdrúbal Vect - Señor Supremo de Commorragh. * Lelith Hesperax - Súcubo del Culto del Conflicto. * Urien Rakarth - Maestro Hemónculo. Arlequines * Sylandri Caminavelos - Vidente de Sombras. Agentes del Caos * La Máscara - Heraldo de Slaanesh. * Ahzek Ahriman - Archihechicero de la Legión Traidora de los Mil Hijos. * Skarbrand ''el Exiliado'' - Devorador de Almas de Khorne. Introducción: Una era de perdiciones venideras Inexorable, unstoppable, the Time of Ending tightens its stranglehold upon the twilight years of the 41st Millennium. Amongst those caught in its grip are the Eldar, a race of psychically gifted aliens that once ruled the stars. Brought low by their own pride and blind hedonism, they now skirt the precipice of oblivion. Only through the most desperate ploys can they hope to survive. Though the Eldar long ago learned how to stave off the awful, soul-sucking attention of She Who Thirsts – known as Slaanesh in the tongues of men – they have not fully escaped the curse of the deity their hubris spawned. The Eldar of the craftworlds seek to avoid disaster through asceticism and self-control, using spirit stones and infinity circuits as a refuge from Slaanesh, whereas the Dark Eldar Commorrites, still given to the excesses that brought their race low, inflict suffering upon others in order to escape their own fate. The enigmatic Harlequins, having pledged their souls to the trickster god Cegorach, slip through Slaanesh’s clawed grasp by always staying one step ahead. The Exodites, those puritans first to flee the ancient Eldar worlds, turn their backs on change, instead seeking harmony with the World Spirits of their verdant paradises. No matter the methods they use to escape the notice of the god that haunts them, all Eldar sacrifice much in the process. None can claim to be the equal of their ancient forebears, the Aeldari – they who married physical excellence with prodigious psychic ability, safe in the knowledge that upon their deaths they would rejoin the endless cycle and be reborn. There are those amongst the Eldar that seek a way back to those halcyon days. Their peers consider them dangerously deluded. To return to the glowing, incandescent existence of aeons past is to attract Slaanesh’s gaze, and hence court the worst kind of disaster. Some Eldar refuse to abandon the glorious dream of building the ancient empire anew, or at least burning bright before the end. First amongst these ambitious few is Eldrad Ulthran, the High Farseer of Craftworld Ulthwé. This arch-manipulator has been plucking at the strings of fate since before the dawn of the Imperium of Man. His prescience is like a diamond blade, sharpened by the intensity of his conviction. By weaving the tangled skeins of destiny, the Farseer guides his people to the most favourable of futures. Eldrad has long perceived a nascent presence in the infinity circuits of the craftworlds, a distant heartbeat that pulses slow and steady behind the thrum of lost energies. It is comprised not of one life sign, but hundreds of billions – the sum total of every dead Eldar’s soul across the galaxy. Though individually these echoes are near insignificant, together they form something so strong that – if it were brought to wakefulness – it could prove potent enough to overcome the Eldar curse entirely. This is Ynnead, the slumbering God of the Dead. The prophecies of the fabled seer Kysaduras tell that when every Eldar has passed from mortal existence, Ynnead will rise up and defeat Slaanesh forever more. It was Eldrad Ulthran who put into motion a plan to bring forth Ynnead, a ploy of such conceited ambition it could buckle the fabric of space and time. Enlisting the aid of the Harlequin Masque of the Midnight Sorrow, he stole away the fossilised crystal statues of long-dead Farseers from their craftworlds and gathered them upon Coheria, a moon covered in sands of psychoactive crystal. With his crystal council acting as a hyperspatial link to each craftworld, Eldrad channelled the spirits of the infinity circuits onto Coheria. This was to produce a flare of psychic activity bright enough to wake even Ynnead, but the intervention of the xenos-hunting Deathwatch shattered Eldrad’s plan at the last. Though Ynnead stirred in his slumber, he did not fully awaken – not yet, at least. Capítulo I: La Fractura Espadas de Commorragh Screams filled the air, some of agony, some of ecstasy. Within the confines of the Crucibael arena, the Dark City’s elite had gathered in great number to witness the finest spectacle that the Cult of Strife could muster. The Commorrite attendees of the mile-wide arena had paid handsomely for the privilege of being allowed through its statue-framed portals. Some had ceded large portions of their territory to secure their seats; others had handed over thousands of slaves. Still more had performed lethal errands on behalf of the arena’s owners, or committed even darker atrocities to secure a few hours of precious attendance. It was worth every sacrifice, for they were there not merely to be entertained, but to feast. The Dark Eldar take their sustenance from suffering. Their souls, long ago condemned by the coming of She Who Thirsts, are constantly drained away, ever so slowly but appreciably nonetheless. Only by witnessing the pain of others can they stave off the aching void that claims their spirits, and the older a Dark Eldar soul becomes, the more grievous the atrocities needed to sustain it. Because of this unique blend of sadism and parasitism, the arenas in Commorragh’s heartlands combine the role of twisted circus and gluttonous feast. The spectacles mounted there are increasingly outlandish; a seemingly endless supply of enslaved warriors and champions of the lesser races are hacked to pieces each night for the edification of the thirsting crowd. In the most prestigious arenas, the death toll rises ever higher as the Wych Cults strive to outdo each other in skill and imagination. Through such loathsome displays, the wealthiest Commorrites are reinvigorated – for a time, at least. The greatest of all Commorragh’s arenas is the Crucibael, domain of the Wych Cult of Strife and sovereign territory of Her Excellence, Lelith Hesperax. This site has played host to countless legendary figures, even being treated to the consummate blade work of the Phoenix Lord Jain Zar, first of the Howling Banshees. With a capacity of well over a million, the nightly spectaculars staged there are stunning in their magnitude and lucrative beyond measure. No small amount of this tithe is given unto Lelith herself, for the Queen of Knives has ruled here for longer than even the longest-lived of her Succubi rivals remember. She feeds on countless souls every night, and would do anything to preserve her beauty. Since the Cult of Strife’s realspace raid upon the world of Valedor, the Crucibael has cultivated some very highly prized battle-fodder indeed. Once known as Dûriel, the planet Valedor had been corrupted by the infestations of Imperial culture. It was driven to the brink of disaster by not one, but two Tyranid hive fleets, and finally tipped into oblivion by an alliance of craftworlders and Dark Eldar using the doomsday device known as the Fireheart. Before Valedor met its fiery end, the Wych Cult of Strife captured whole swarms of Tyranids, later interbreeding them to enliven their arenas. It was that ravenous brood that Lelith Hesperax unleashed from her stasis prisons on what became known as the Night of Revelations. Even though the Tyranids were famous for being deadly in the extreme, utterly alien and all but impervious to pain, they were not the only attraction that had drawn so large a crowd that night. There was one amongst the Succubi who had risen from the gutter to high favour under the patronage of the aristocratic Lady Malys. So far had this gladiatrix’s fame spread that even a troupe of Harlequins had come to see her and her Bloodbrides fight. Some had touted her as fit to challenge Lelith Hesperax in personal combat. This claim was usually a death sentence for even the most skilled warrior, for Lady Hesperax was so immensely gifted in the art of combat that those who faced her usually died in seconds. Yet there was something special about this fashionable new challenger. Known in Commorragh as the Daughter of Shades, as Amharoc to the corsairs that once called her mistress, and as Yvraine to the craftworlders that once called her kin, this tall and regal Succubus was a favourite in certain wealthy circles. She was not a true Commorrite, and hence was interestingly controversial, famed for her lightning transformations from stately elegance to a whirlwind of violence. When roused to anger, she would shuck off her courtly regalia to slash open the throats of those who had earned her ire. This gory retribution had happened upon the bridge of the corsair flagship Lanathrialle, within the trophy galleries of the Archon Abrahak, and even on the Seer’s Bridge of Biel-Tan. Yvraine’s mercurial temperament had ndeared her to those who respected decisive violence – in essence, the vast majority of the Dark City’s inhabitants. The night Yvraine met Lelith in single combat, the Crucibael had already bared witness to several violent displays. An elite band of Sslyth, the serpentine mercenaries popular in the courts of Dark Eldar society, had shot, gouged and poisoned their way through a troop of Donorian Clawed Fiends amongst a constant barrage of whirring grav-blades. Only the gnarled patrician Sassarassen had survived the process. Three Covens of Haemonculi had then showcased their latest creations, sending their blank-faced horrors against the most agile gladiatrixes in classic pairings of beauty versus beast. Next, a battered combat squad of Space Marines in full power armour had been released from their vex-prisons to fight amongst the carnage. Though the Adeptus Astartes had been given only knives with which to fight, they survived a full three minutes, killing thirteen Wyches before the glaives of swooping Hellions cut them apart. By the evening’s climactic finale, the arena was filled with the baying of a crowd that had started the evening feigning nonchalance. The Tyranids had been released, an alchemical blend of specimens from Hive Fleets Kraken and Leviathan cloned at great cost in the laboratories of the Haemonculi. They darted from hidden tunnels to rampage across the bloody sands. The largest of their number, a blade-limbed Hive Tyrant, came straight for Yvraine with its guard-beasts at its flank. She cast her gossamer skirts aside to reveal a skin-tight wychsuit as her Bloodbride acolytes fanned out around her. Darting in, Yvraine killed three of the creature’s hulking escorts in as many seconds – her huskblade whipped in and out, driven with a fencer’s precision under the exoskeletons of the creatures to turn them into explosions of scattering ash. The Hive Tyrant stormed in, bladed cranium lowered and scything limbs stabbing. Yvraine bowed as if to a respected opponent before leaping, planting a foot upon one of the creature’s sickle- limbs, and springing over its head in a somersault. She landed beyond it, flicking up a fallen Wych’s blade with her foot and hook-kicking it into the brain-like sac that protruded over the nape of the Tyranid’s neck. The creature shrieked an alien war cry, spinning with a speed that belied its immense size before storming forward once more. Yvraine ran to meet its charge, sliding underneath the beast at the last moment and stabbing her huskblade up into its midsection. The desiccating curse of the blade went to work, and the Hive Tyrant crumbled away from the groin upwards. Reduced to scattering beige dust, it blew in the wind to land with titillating foulness upon the tongues of the spectators. The roar of approval was so loud it brought the attention of a new foe. Slashing, maiming and decapitating came Lady Hesperax, the doyenne of the arenas. She danced through the carnage towards Yvraine, a deadly nonchalance in every fresh kill. The crowd sat bolt upright in their seats, some craning forward, others standing with expressions of rapt glee. Yvraine was preoccupied, duelling with a whip-fast Lictor that had crept from a mound of mangled bodies. She was unable to disengage without risking entanglement in the creature’s lashing hooks. Lelith pirouetted between the two combatants, cutting the front half of the Lictor’s distended face from its head in a spray of squirting tentacles even as she thrust a blow towards her would-be rival’s heart. Yvraine parried the blow, but only just. She stepped back as she did so, putting some space between her and the whirling dervish that even now took the Tyranid’s head with a series of slashing blows. Lelith turned to Yvraine and sashayed forward, a contemptuous smile on her lips as she idly flipped a dagger high. Yvraine waved her Bloodbrides back, springing forward before Lelith could catch the blade. She headed right into a riposte, and barely turned it aside. Back and forth the darting combatants weaved, their blades moving with a precision and economy of effort that was enrapturing for the Dark Eldar – even the Harlequins in the audience stood agog at the sight. Lelith fought with a cold and efficient detachment; she was the more skilled of the two, and both the duellists knew it. Conversely, Yvraine was fired by a focussed fury; her anger gave her blows surety and strength. On went the fight, faster and faster, a blur of thrusts and parries, flips and feints, pushes, dodges and kicks. Now and then an artful slap or jab into a nerve cluster showed that Lelith was playing with her opponent. Many felt their hearts sink as the close match they had hoped for was revealed as a sham – and then Yvraine’s knife slashed across Lelith’s forearm. The crowd screamed in approval, but as with much of Dark Eldar society, this too was duplicity. Lady Hesperax had purposefully left an opening and allowed her adversary’s blade to land in order to draw the audience further in. Lelith was in no hurry to end the duel, for it would not do to disappoint her patron, Asdrubael Vect. The Supreme Overlord was watching from his pyramidal fortress floating high above, gracing the arena with a portion of his attention. The death shriek of a Tyranid giant echoed around the gladiatorial field. Reading her opponent’s next blow, Lelith spared a proprietary glance to the wider battle. In a flash, Yvraine reversed her thrust and landed a hard punch right in her adversary’s stomach. Lelith took two involuntary steps back, her eyes wide and her superior smile souring into a grimace of anger. The duel stepped up in speed and intensity once more, the chime of dagger upon huskblade and bladefan upon knife ringing loud. Yvraine soon found herself wrong footed, and Lelith stamped hard on her instep, the humiliation of the strike bringing her anger to the boil. Lady Hesperax gave ground as Yvraine rained blows upon her, slowly drawing her adversary towards a pile of twitching Tyranid corpses. Nimble as a cat, Lelith danced from corpse to corpse to gain the high ground. Yvraine climbed the corpse-pile, her anger burning away all caution. Then the fallen Lictor she had duelled earlier spasmed, throwing her off balance. Lelith leapt, and punched a dagger through her foe’s sternum. Judging the irony of Yvraine’s undoing a pleasing end to the dance, Lelith vaulted away in search of fresh prey. Yvraine stumbled but did not fall, hiding the deep wound in her chest with her opened bladefan – to show weakness would be to die. It was her blood that betrayed her. Though she fought on, hacking a path through a stampede of Hormagaunts and leaving clouds of flesh-dust in her wake, a slick of gore soon painted her abdomen and thighs. The sight of the blood, and the occasional falter in Yvraine’s guard, drew a mob of opportunistic Hellions from above. The gladiatrix had no intention of falling to such low-life scum. She picked up a fallen splinter pistol and sent three of the Hellions to an agonising death in as many seconds, driving the rest off in a chorus of shrieks. But the youthful predators were not the only enemies drawn by Yvraine’s spilt life-blood. Stalking towards Yvraine came a stick-thin, elegant warrior with long needles in her hands. Her cadaverous body was bound up in a complex net of black silk, the icon of the long-dead crone goddess Morai-Heg emblazoned on her forehead. With a jolt of shock and contempt, Yvraine realised she had seen that ceremonial garb before, in the statue gardens of her native Biel-Tan. Her new challenger wore the raiment of an ancient priestess from before the Eldar empire had fallen. The needles of the crone-priestess darted out, and for a few seconds, Yvraine was forced onto the defensive. It was as if she were being assailed by the rapiers of two master fencers at once – small wonder this warrior had earned a place in the arena. On any other night, Yvraine could have outclassed the priestess without breaking a sweat. But she was sorely wounded. Dismay took hold within her as she felt her strength draining away, her every blow weaker than the last. One of the twin needles pierced Yvraine at the wrist, forcing her to drop her bladefan. She stepped in and viciously backhanded the priestess, intending to force her back. It was like striking marble. Her foe’s other razored needle whipped in, slicing through Yvraine’s other wrist entirely and sending her severed hand, still clutching her huskblade, tumbling into the sands. In desperation, Yvraine lunged, open-mouthed, and bit deep into the priestess’ face. Howls of derision and delight mingled in the arena as Yvraine struggled in close, teeth still in her enemy’s flesh. She wrapped her arms around the swordswoman’s neck in a choke grip, and desperately struggled to suffocate her. Summoning the last of her strength, Yvraine squeezed. Her legs were numb, her wrists masses of hot pain, but as ever, anger and fear gave her strength. The priestess shook and spasmed, but could not break free, her struggles ebbing as her breath abandoned her. Yvraine was on the cusp too; she saw spots of black dance across her eyes, which then grew to obscure her vision entirely. Locked in a mutual death grip, the two combatants shuddered, sighed, and passed the threshold of mortality. Then, as bright as a captive sun, a tiny star burst upwards from the sands of the arena and consumed them both. Yvraine’s eyes flew open, milk-white and glowing. She screamed as she felt a new dimension of awareness blossom in her pain-addled mind, obliterating the petty concerns of her previous life. Something vast had risen from below after the crone warrior’s death, pressing into Yvraine’s soul with the force of a tidal wave. It would not be denied. In her mind’s eye, Yvraine saw Ynnead. He was a shooting star from a crystal moon, then a shimmering constellation, a trillion points of light that glowed in the outline of a solemn face. The God of the Dead’s immense eyes fell upon her, and even though the slitted orbs were all but closed, the thin sliver of awareness that he focussed upon her was excruciating. His merest scrutiny bared her soul, and in that moment she was claimed utterly and forever as his own. This was a legend made real, the most remote of possibilities wrought in starlight. The apparition was so bright that it seared itself into Yvraine’s consciousness forever, making her blind to anything other than his glory. Then the godly star-mirage breathed a single word – a whisper, yet deafening in its intensity. ‘Daughter.’ Bow waves of mystical energy exploded outward from Yvraine’s body as she was raised up by an invisible hand. Off-white, they crackled like an electromagnetic pulse across the arena’s western quadrant and into the stands of the aghast spectators. Wherever they touched Eldar flesh, the energies took hold of the unfortunate individuals and withered them away, turning the audience into nothing more than a horde of blood-slicked skeletons. The largest Tyranids, slowed but not slain, stormed into the crowd in a series of bloody rampages. Trueborn marksmen opened fire with dark lances and splinter cannons as the violence escalated. Some took shots at the calamitous Succubus that had laid low their masters, but every beam and projectile was deflected from Yvraine’s cruciform body. She rose higher, aglow with an aura of unearthly power. Her wounds, alight with white fire, healed over – even her left hand, severed at the wrist, was restored, formed from blinding energy that coalesced into a stylised gauntlet of ancient design. Lelith Hesperax, leaping with mantis swiftness to catch hold of a swerving Reaver jetbike, veered away high into the night. Her smile was the glint of pearls in the gloom. El azote de Commorragh High above the carnage, Asdrubael Vect’s gigantic viewing pyramid rose on a thrumming cushion of sound. The bass note of its grav-engines squirmed in the guts of all present as it headed towards the heart of the Corespur district. The tyrant of Commorragh had not ruled over his impossible domain for so long without developing a keen instinct for when to be elsewhere, and did not intend to linger. Instead, he sent his proxies to restore order. Sleek knife-craft peeled away from the titanic fuselage of Vect’s pyramid, veering silently towards the arena’s heart. Some sixth sense woke Yvraine from her deathly apotheosis. The ground quaked beneath her feet as she gathered her wits. Though she did not realise it, the metaphysical explosion centred around her had a far graver effect on the Dark City than merely destroying part of the Crucibael. Her surviving Bloodbrides ran to join her as the crackling white energies of her transformation had dispersed. Nearby, armed warriors vaulted over the arena’s bladed walls. They were heading directly for the reborn Succubus, guns and voices raised as they took their chance to pounce. Instinct took over. Quick as a snake, Yvraine leaned out of the path of a volley of poison-tipped needles and cartwheeled one-handed over a searing dark lance beam. She vaulted into the shadow of a lumbering Tyrannofex sending swarms of flesh- eating beetle-creatures into the crowd; the immense creature’s iron-hard bulk provided a better defensive position than any of the arena’s elegantly appointed balustrades. Eyes darting, she forced her thoughts into focus, and braved a glance past the beast at her attackers. It did not look good. Her assailants were Kabalite Trueborn, by their insignia, and they had whole shrines of Incubi with them. Those klaive-wielding artisans of murder preferred not to fight in the arena, seeing it as a distasteful display that could only expose their strengths and weaknesses in the long term. Tonight, they were evidently prepared to make an exception. Yvraine was slowly becoming aware of the extreme danger she was in. Not only had she effectively slain hundreds of the Dark City’s finest, she had become possessed by an eldritch force, and judging by the shuddering sands beneath her feet, shaken the entire district to its foundations. The Incubi would be the least of her worries when the Haemonculi moved in. No doubt they planned to dissect her in agonizing, drawn-out detail. Yvraine’s Bloodbrides ran in zigzagging, bounding packs towards the oncoming Incubi, meeting the mercenaries’ two-handed klaives with shardnets, razorflails and impalers. Blood flew in graceful arcs as a hurricane of blades erupted. For a while, neither side seemed to be able to gain the upper hand. The sculpted, dense metallofibres of the Incubi’s armour protected them from the slashing blades of all but the nimblest Hekatarii, and the Incubi landed few blows in return, for the Bloodbrides moved with preternatural speed. Then each shrine’s Klaivex leader triggered his bloodstone. Waves of pain wracked the Bloodbrides, sending them staggering backwards. The Incubi were close enough to capitalise, their movements so smooth it was obvious that they had practiced this manoeuvre a thousand times. A score of Bloodbrides died in just a few seconds. With the Trueborn moving in to take their choice of kills, the stalemate became a slaughter. Yvraine felt an intense pressure build up in her head, every fresh death intensifying the feeling. The incredible sensations swelling in her soul threatened to blind her, deafen her, or stun her into a coma. There was so much death, so many souls cut from their bodies, that she could not bear it. The ground itself swelled with power. Yvraine spat out six words that had arrived unbidden to her lips. The lights of the arena, almost painfully bright so the spectators could see every nuance of the fights, dimmed to low twilight. The bright designs of the Wyches’ ritual outfits were leached of all colour. Even the splashes of blood that seemed to arc in slow motion through the air were rendered near black by the sudden illusion of monochrome. Yvraine felt a great gale of pent-up energy escape her, a palpable force that left her feeling as clear-minded and eager as a youth at a rite of passage. The gladiatrix vaulted from the cover of the Tyrannofex corpse, snatching up her huskblade from its resting place on the sands. The sword, like Yvraine herself, had been transformed. The elegant blade resonated at her touch, and as she held it aloft in her newly gauntleted hand, it was radiant with power. She whipped her head around to find the best route out, and saw a scene from a disturbing dream. The corpses of several dozen Dark Eldar fanned out from her position, many of her Bloodbrides lying amongst scatterings of Incubi and Trueborn that had fallen dead without a single obvious wound. Yvraine felt her throat tighten at the sight, her eyes hurting with the intensity of the stark spectacle around her. The fairings and balustrades of the arena were still embattled, knots of Tyranids hacking and slicing their way into the city beyond. Yvraine shouted a quick order to her surviving Bloodbrides and ran towards the thinnest area of the crowd, huskblade glowing in her left hand as she retrieved her bladefan with her right. Slashing, jumping, and darting left and right, Yvraine – and the two dozen Bloodbrides still by her side – broke as fast as they could for the edge of the arena. A wall of Kabalites barred her path, but as a great shout of anger forced itself from her lips, many of them were ripped from their feet as if by invisible ghosts. It was too much for their comrades. The morbid display had seemed too close to the psychic arts, strictly forbidden in Commorragh due to the likelihood of drawing the gaze of Slaanesh and hence dooming the entire city to a catastrophic dysjunction. Few amongst them realised that dire event was already unfolding, a full-blown daemonic invasion erupting beneath their feet. As Yvraine ran, a Hellion in the gang colours of the Ghyrebats swooped in, desperate to make a name for himself by capturing or killing the focal point of the carnage. Stepping under the youth’s outstretched glaive, Yvraine flicked out her huskblade and impaled him with its tip. The young warrior fell from his skyboard, which came to a smooth halt as its rider fell apart – not into arid dust, as was usual for the huskblade’s touch, but in a cascade of tiny, glowing embers. Somehow, Yvraine heard the howl of the Hellion’s soul as it departed its body. Although it dwindled, the scream did not recede altogether. The soul had not been drained, nor stolen away by the sucking pull of She Who Thirsts as with all other Dark Eldar. In an unlikely moment of contrition, Yvraine felt empathy with that dying soul. A heartbeat later, a new voice was in her head, mewling with fear. Distracted as she was, only the sound of armoured footsteps on the sand saved Yvraine from a swift decapitation. She leaned back, an Incubus’ klaive whistling less than a finger’s breadth from her nose as another of the weapons came in low. With her own blade, she turned the second klaive aside and upwards, ensuring it crashed into the first hard enough to buy her some space. She levelled a solid kick to the midriff of one of the assailants and a hard elbow to the other, giving her time to recover. Yvraine snarled as she saw that six more Incubi were circling around her, and that her Bloodbrides were similarly beset. The mercenary killers stepped in close, blades raised in ritualistic battle stances. They would attack as one, a pack of predators rather than a loose gathering of competitors like the Wych Cults. Against such disciplined strength, even a Succubus would find her life expectancy measured in seconds. Yvraine raised her aberrant new huskblade into a guard stance, and curled a finger to beckon them to their deaths – or perhaps to hers. She saw a flash of crimson armour behind the Incubi, and two of their number were suddenly headless. Horned helms bounced away as another was halved at the waist. With a flash of inspiration, Yvraine jumped sidelong and grabbed the Ghyrebat’s hovering skyboard, legs swinging out wide to kick the fourth Incubus in the head with neck-breaking force. She swung onto the delicate machine as if born to it; though she had never so much as touched a skyboard, she was suddenly familiar with every nuance. Triggering its splinter pod, she shot down a fifth Incubus just as the sixth was cut in half from neck to groin by the crimson fighter. The last two shrine-warriors backed away and ran. Disquieted and angry, Yvraine leapt from the skyboard and pointed her blade towards the newcomer as his own fighters rallied to him. He was armed and armoured in the style of Bel-Anshoc, a genius artisan whose style Yvraine recognised from sculptures and paintings of the Eldar’s long-lost past. More than that, his guard stance was familiar. She had witnessed several of his looping blows in the fight, the very same moves she had used to great effect since her days as an Aspect Warrior. This mysterious swordsman was clearly not her enemy. With their new allies close, Yvraine and her Bloodbrides emerged triumphant from the melee at the arena’s heart. Like a flowing river, the clique of warriors moved fluidly to the nearest egress portal. They avoided the skirmishes between Tyranids and Dark Eldar and instead sought the streets of the Dark City proper. Yvraine headed for Sec Maegra, for that district was a teeming sub-metropolis famous for a dizzying variety of ne’er-do-wells – sellswords of far lower repute than Incubi. There, she would find many of her old allies, from corsair princes to disfigured Wyches and other outcasts. Should she stay one step ahead of her pursuers as the Dark City reeled from the night’s events, she would in theory be able to reach the docks – and with luck, enlist the corsairs of her former capital ship, Lanathrialle, to her cause. Yvraine’s possession by the macabre god Ynnead had shaken the very fabric of the Dark City. Far away, a miscarried ritual conducted by Eldrad Ulthran on the crystal moon of Coheria had twisted Yvraine’s fate – chosen by forces unknown, she had died at the exact moment of the god’s ascension. This confluence of Empyrean energy and realspace flesh was so severe it led to a hyperspatial quake known in Commorragh as a dysjunction. Dozens of spires toppled and districts turned in on themselves, skyscraping statues and high towers shivered and fell apart. Millions died, but there were worse fates in store for those who still braved the streets. Beneath Commorragh there is a sealed portal known as Khaine’s Gate. This has existed for time immemorial, bound by arcane means against the Daemon hosts on the other side. Desperate to break in, these hungry fiends have ever grown louder and more insistent, so much so that Vect himself had recently ceded this once-prized territory to his rivals. As the dysjunction shook the Dark City, the vaulted chambers around Khaine’s Gate collapsed, killing the caged psychic nulls that protected it from Warp breach. The gate glowed white hot, and then, with a cracking boom, burst open. Thousands of Daemons poured through, cackling with cruel glee as they sank blades, claws and fangs into any unfortunate enough to cross their paths. Urgent spates of conflict flowed into one another as Kabals, Wych Cults, and even the Covens of the Haemonculi found themselves attacked by Daemons of every conceivable kind. Vect and his Kabal had already made haste for safe havens long prepared in the shadowy recesses of the webway. Commorragh was truly vast; it would survive even this. Knowing the Daemons would bring disaster, he had left his rivals to suffer the brunt of the invasion. Once they had expended every resource in their struggle against the Daemon invasion, Vect would return to the Dark City and bring it to heel once more. Yvraine’s flight to Sec Maegra saw her fight through acquisitive Wracks, half-real Khymerae and even a blood-spattered cavalcade of Daemonettes, but eventually she reached the spinedock that held her allies’ ship. The blade-wielding Visarch and his mercenary escort had intervened a dozen times on Yvraine’s behalf, and each time their intervention had tipped the balance in the gladiatrix’s favour. She had no time to share more than a few words of thanks with the warrior; for now, she was content that they both fought on the same side. Though she did not fully comprehend it, Yvraine’s fate was the fulcrum upon which the fate of trillions had turned. She had been resurrected in a form far stranger and more powerful than even that of the Haemonculi who sought her. The Daughter of Shades had been Reborn, her journey to demigodhood hastened by a profound bond forged with Ynnead upon the threshold of death. In the process, she had all but doomed the city of Commorragh to daemonic invasion. La danza del destino P17 Terribles noticias para Biel-Tan P21 Paraíso corrompido P23 Tormenta demoníaca P27 La Tempestad de Espadas P31 La llegada de las almas ilustres P35 Un Mundo Astronave quebrado P36 La Fractura de Biel-Tan P40 Capítulo II: Descenso al Pasado Los guardianes del umbral P45 El camino de los Videntes P49 Imperio de cenizas P53 La caza de almas de Belial IV P57 Capítulo III: La última esperanza de los Eldars Luz en la oscuridad P65 El príncipe predestinado P71 Tejiendo la madeja P77 Guerra en el laberinto P81 Choque en la luna de hielo P89 El camino a la salvación P93 Informes de la Tormenta Creciente P19, 22, 27, 38, 54, 58, 74, 78, 85, 90. Categoría:Entradas Categoría:Artículos para traducir